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Nasdaq to Delist SCO Sep 27

symbolset writes "The Nasdaq Staff has decided to delist SCO at open of business on September 27, 2007 under their discretionary authority and as a result of SCO filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. SCO can get a hearing but "There can be no assurance that the panel will grant the Company's request for continued listing.""

269 comments

  1. Good bye and... by drspliff · · Score: 5, Funny

    Remember to fit the grave with a bell "just in case" :)

    1. Re:Good bye and... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Remember to wrap the bell in cotton, duct tape and concrete. This is the only case where nobody wants the dead ringer to be noticed an dug up.

    2. Re:Good bye and... by SimonInOz · · Score: 1

      May I be the first to offer condolences to Darl McBride.

      --
      "Cats like plain crisps"
    3. Re:Good bye and... by Vulva+R.+Thompson,+P · · Score: 1

      If you heard it ring, would you do anything about it? ;)

    4. Re:Good bye and... by texaport · · Score: 3, Funny

      And be sure to drive a stake through the heart
      just in case.

    5. Re:Good bye and... by AndyCR · · Score: 3, Funny

      Yeah. Cut the string off the bell.

      --
      If there's anyone I hate more than stupid people, it's intellectuals.
    6. Re:Good bye and... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may. You'll probably also be the last.

    7. Re:Good bye and... by jamesh · · Score: 1

      Remember to fit the grave with a bell "just in case" :)

      Might I suggest 's/bell "just in case"/hard-wearing dance floor/'. There will be a long queue...

      Actually by charging $2 admission for the chance to dance on SCO's grave, I'm sure we could put together some package to aquire the rights to whatever IP SCO claim to have, so that Darl can't just buy it at firesale prices and start all over again.
    8. Re:Good bye and... by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 1

      You know we should probably consider nukes...maybe even launch them into orbit them drop them from there...one would imagine that it's the only way to be sure with these sorts of things...

      --
      There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
    9. Re:Good bye and... by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · · Score: 3, Funny

      dig up the casket, riddle corpse with silver bullets, stab through heart with a crusifix, pour salt down its throat, cut off its head, and re bury it with a hunk of kyrptonite. Just in case it turned into a werewolf, vampire, authentic or movie zombie, or superman.

      --
      Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
    10. Re:Good bye and... by nmb3000 · · Score: 2, Funny

      May I be the first to offer condolences to Darl McBride.

      Except that I tagged the story 'poordarl' right after it was posted :P

      Of course I also tagged it 'poorsco' and 'makethempayforwhattheyvedone'. What can I say, I try to be descriptive :)

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    11. Re:Good bye and... by modecx · · Score: 4, Funny

      ...then we nuke the entire graveyard from space. It's the only way to be sure.

      --
      Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
    12. Re:Good bye and... by Gazzonyx · · Score: 1

      ...then we nuke the entire graveyard from space. It's the only way to be sure. ...twice... I hear cockroaches survive nuclear fallout.
      --

      If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.

    13. Re:Good bye and... by AndyCR · · Score: 1

      Great idea, but where the heck is SCO's heart? I can't for the life of me find it.

      --
      If there's anyone I hate more than stupid people, it's intellectuals.
    14. Re:Good bye and... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And then dig up the crater and fire the glowing remains into the Sun.

      To be extra thorough, buy the movie rights to "The SCO story" from Darl, burn the scripts, and send the ashes along on the same rocket.

  2. hmm by Loconut1389 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I got dibs on sco.com!

    1. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

      That will become a rocking anal pr0n site!

    2. Re:hmm by mudshark · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Interesting factoid: It's currently number 86 out of the 100 oldest .com domain names which remain in use today. Funny how the number 86 would prove portentous...from UNIX for x86 processors to being 86ed from the NASDAQ.

      --
      In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
    3. Re:hmm by thegameiam · · Score: 1

      That's an interesting tidbit- where did you find the list of the oldest domains? I don't have a hosts.txt that's QUITE that old...

      --
      Need Geek Rock? Try The Franchise!
    4. Re:hmm by nmb3000 · · Score: 4, Informative

      That's an interesting tidbit- where did you find the list of the oldest domains?

      Not sure about it's source, but here's one a lot of people reference: http://theforrester.wordpress.com/2007/08/13/the-100-oldest-domains-on-the-internet/. Here's the list for the click-impaired:

      (Note that here SCO is listed at #88. Domains registered on the same day are presented in random order so SCO.COM may indeed be 86. Also, sorry for the stupid formatting, bloody lameness filter).

      1. 15-Mar-1985 SYMBOLICS.COM
      2. 24-Apr-1985 BBN.COM
      3. 24-May-1985 THINK.COM
      4. 11-Jul-1985 MCC.COM
      5. 30-Sep-1985 DEC.COM
      6. 07-Nov-1985 NORTHROP.COM
      7. 09-Jan-1986 XEROX.COM
      8. 17-Jan-1986 SRI.COM
      9. 03-Mar-1986 HP.COM
      10. 05-Mar-1986 BELLCORE.COM
      11. 19-Mar-1986 IBM.COM
      12. 19-Mar-1986 SUN.COM
      13. 25-Mar-1986 INTEL.COM
      14. 25-Mar-1986 TI.COM
      15. 25-Apr-1986 ATT.COM
      16. 08-May-1986 GMR.COM
      17. 08-May-1986 TEK.COM
      18. 10-Jul-1986 FMC.COM
      19. 10-Jul-1986 UB.COM
      20. 05-Aug-1986 BELL-ATL.COM
      21. 05-Aug-1986 GE.COM
      22. 05-Aug-1986 GREBYN.COM
      23. 05-Aug-1986 ISC.COM
      24. 05-Aug-1986 NSC.COM
      25. 05-Aug-1986 STARGATE.COM
      26. 02-Sep-1986 BOEING.COM
      27. 18-Sep-1986 ITCORP.COM
      28. 29-Sep-1986 SIEMENS.COM
      29. 18-Oct-1986 PYRAMID.COM
      30. 27-Oct-1986 ALPHACDC.COM
      31. 27-Oct-1986 BDM.COM
      32. 27-Oct-1986 FLUKE.COM
      33. 27-Oct-1986 INMET.COM
      34. 27-Oct-1986 KESMAI.COM
      35. 7-Oct-1986 MENTOR.COM
      36. 7-Oct-1986 NEC.COM
      37. 27-Oct-1986 RAY.COM
      38. 27-Oct-1986 ROSEMOUNT.COM
      39. 27-Oct-1986 VORTEX.COM
      40. 05-Nov-1986 ALCOA.COM
      41. 05-Nov-1986 GTE.COM
      42. 17-Nov-1986 ADOBE.COM
      43. 17-Nov-1986 AMD.COM
      44. 17-Nov-1986 DAS.COM
      45. 17-Nov-1986 DATA-IO.COM
      46. 17-Nov-1986 OCTOPUS.COM
      47. 17-Nov-1986 PORTAL.COM
      48. 17-Nov-1986 TELTONE.COM
      49. 11-Dec-1986 3COM.COM
      50. 11-Dec-1986 AMDAHL.COM
      51. 11-Dec-1986 CCUR.COM
      52. 11-Dec-1986 CI.COM
      53. 11-Dec-1986 CONVERGENT.COM
      54. 11-Dec-1986 DG.COM
      55. 11-Dec-1986 PEREGRINE.COM
      56. 11-Dec-1986 QUAD.COM
      57. 11-Dec-1986 SQ.COM
      58. 11-Dec-1986 TANDY.COM
      59. 11-Dec-1986 TTI.COM
      60. 11-Dec-1986 UNISYS.COM
      61. 19-Jan-1987 CGI.COM
      62. 19-Jan-1987 CTS.COM
      63. 19-Jan-1987 SPDCC.COM
      64. 19-Feb-1987 APPLE.COM
      65. 04-Mar-1987 NMA.COM
      66. 04-Mar-1987 PRIME.COM
      67. 04-Apr-1987 PHILIPS.COM
      68. 23-Apr-1987 DATACUBE.COM
      69. 23-Apr-1987 KAI.COM

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    5. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      http://www.google.ca/search?q=100+oldest+.com&hl=en&safe=off&start=0&sa=N

      sco.com is actually tied at 86 with 2 others. Sun and IBm are tied at 11.

    6. Re:hmm by nmb3000 · · Score: 1

      Also, sorry for the stupid formatting, bloody lameness filter

      Woah! I don't usually respond to myself (okay I do, that's beside the point) but it appears I've been able to bypass the lameness filter's "Your comment has too few characters per line" limitation. Neato :)

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    7. Re:hmm by greg_barton · · Score: 1

      Thank god it's not number 23!

    8. Re:hmm by deniable · · Score: 1

      It's almost like the had Agent 86 running the joint, but even he had more brains. The board was meeting under the cone of silence.

    9. Re:hmm by ColaMan · · Score: 1

      Ah, history.

      You're not a true geek unless you've visited at least ten of those sites in your normal web browsing.

      --

      You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
      There is a lot of hype here.
    10. Re:hmm by FauxReal · · Score: 1

      Cool, never saw that list before... just reading it kind of fascinating. It also explains why I couldn't register quad.com and had to settle for quadmag.com. I wasn't even aware of the internet till my sophomore year in high school, Sept. 1988.

    11. Re:hmm by NotAgent86 · · Score: 1

      Would you believe it was not Agent 86,..

    12. Re:hmm by mav[LAG] · · Score: 1

      Although a true mentat could never by definition visit MENTAT.COM...

      --
      --- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
    13. Re:hmm by Bert64 · · Score: 1

      Where's the list?

      --
      http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
    14. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pedantic:

      A factoid is not a 'small fact':

      Factoid can refer to a spurious (unverified, incorrect, or invented) "fact" intended to create or prolong public exposure or to manipulate public opinion. It appears in the Oxford English Dictionary[1] as "something which becomes accepted as fact, although it may not be true", namely a speculation or an assumption. The term was coined by Norman Mailer in his 1973 biography of Marilyn Monroe.[2] Mailer described a factoid as "facts which have no existence before appearing in a magazine or newspaper", and created the word by combining the word "fact" and the ending "-oid" to mean "like a fact".[3][4]

      But:

      is now sometimes also used to mean a small piece of true but valueless or insignificant information, in contrast to the original definition. This has been popularized by the CNN Headline News TV channel, which, during the 1980s and 1990s, used to frequently include such a fact under the heading "factoid" during newscasts. In the United Kingdom, BBC Radio 2 presenter Steve Wright uses factoids extensively on his show.[11]

      As a result of confusion over the meaning of factoid, some English-language style and usage guides recommend against its use.[12] /lunchbreak

    15. Re:hmm by Seahawk · · Score: 4, Funny

      I am sure that the people that host symbolic.com are puzzled by the sudden increase in hits today! :)

    16. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      2^86 is the largest known power of 2 whose decimal expansion contains no zeros.

    17. Re:hmm by amishdisco · · Score: 1

      Looks like Microsoft was waiting to see if Apple got a domain name first....

    18. Re:hmm by quantum+bit · · Score: 1

      It gets worse! The first x86 processor was the 8086. 8*86 = 688. If you add the digits of 688 together you get 22. 688-22 = 666!

      OMG! Intel is the devil!

    19. Re:hmm by Maximum+Prophet · · Score: 1

      Uhm, what about the .edu's or .mil's? I know Purdue was on Arpanet long before DNS, but I don't know when they registered their DNS domain.

      --
      All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
    20. Re:hmm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This shows there were idiots working there already back in '86. 3com.com should never have been permitted, as a leading digit for a domain name was explicitly not allowed in the DNS system.

    21. Re:hmm by arturs · · Score: 1

      Any slashdotter worth their name should know very well what Symbolics was, what role it had in the life of RMS and how it contributed to forming the first version of GPL.

    22. Re:hmm by mink · · Score: 1

      If you can get it to come up 616 you have the true number of the beast.

      --
      Well I've wrestled with reality for thirty five years doctor, and I'm happy to say I finally won out over it.
  3. What happens? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    So what happens to those of us who short sold their stock?

    1. Re:What happens? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You think you have problems? I put my entire 401K into SCO. Oh god, the humanity!!!

    2. Re:What happens? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You go to pinksheets.com, buy the amount of stock back you shorted for pennies on the dollar, then surrender it back to your broker.

    3. Re:What happens? by compro01 · · Score: 1

      i dunno, the way the stock looks right now, it looks like a prime opportunity for day traders, being as at this price, it is fluctuating in the double-digits, and it's gone up by about 25% today (from $0.16 to $0.20) and it was up a whole $0.08 (from $0.16 to $0.24) at the high point today, which was a gain of 50%. and being as it is so cheap, the risk is fairly minimal.

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    4. Re:What happens? by Himring · · Score: 2, Funny

      You get that sound effect: "wah, wah, wah, waaaaaah...."

      --
      "All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
    5. Re:What happens? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And if SCO ceases to exist completely, will you be forced to start a new company named SCO just to honor your short?

    6. Re:What happens? by pyite · · Score: 1

      and being as it is so cheap, the risk is fairly minimal.

      Quick lesson. Risk is measured in basis points, or bps (pronounced "bips"), i.e. 1/100 of a percent. Risk is not measured in dollars, so the price magnitude of a security is no measure of its risk.

      --

      "Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman

    7. Re:What happens? by the_humeister · · Score: 1

      What happens if they go completely bankrupt and you can't get the stock anywhere anymore? I was kind of wondering the same thing with Iridium several years back when their stock was flying high and dropped to nothing after becoming bankrupt.

    8. Re:What happens? by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      and being as it is so cheap, the risk is fairly minimal.

            I beg to differ: this doesn't make sense. Because if you're only going to buy 100 shares for say $20 then I agree the "risk" is minimal. After all, the most you can lose is $20. Wow big deal. However you'll have a hard time paying your $14 ($7 each way) commission on that.

            So if you're going to go in for a fair chunk of change - say $20k or so (around 100k shares), I wouldn't consider losing 50% ($10k) or even 5% ($1k) "minimal" risk. Yeah ok shorting the stuff makes sense, but if you get caught on the wrong side for some reason (like you said, it went up 50% somehow) it won't take very long for you to shit your pants.

            If you play with a stock from a company with non-existent fundamentals like SCO, don't complain if you get burned. You will probably get better odds on the roulette table at your nearest casino.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    9. Re:What happens? by _Sprocket_ · · Score: 2, Funny

      What happens if they go completely bankrupt and you can't get the stock anywhere anymore? They might take Charmin in lieu of stock. Thankfully that stuff is always available. Of course, the company behind Charmin has a viable business model.
    10. Re:What happens? by pchan- · · Score: 1

      Assuming, of course, you can find someone to buy the stock from you. And the stock doesn't go to zero.

    11. Re:What happens? by seanadams.com · · Score: 1

      You get that sound effect: "wah, wah, wah, waaaaaah...."

      I don't think you understand the concept of shorting.

    12. Re:What happens? by pchan- · · Score: 2, Informative

      Assuming, of course, you can find someone to buy the stock from you

      Er, assuming you can find someone to buy from. I think there are more shorts than holders.

    13. Re:What happens? by mr_mischief · · Score: 4, Informative

      What happens if I maintain a short position in a stock that is delisted and declares bankruptcy? says you have pure profit, basically.

      I'm guessing you know about covering dividends, one-time special payments, and the like to the long holder. Short selling is fraught with danger, but boy can't it be handy?

    14. Re:What happens? by Wavicle · · Score: 1

      They go and buy scosource licenses to keep the boat afloat until they can buy shares to cover their position.

      --
      Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
      Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
    15. Re:What happens? by vux984 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Clearly you dont know what it means to short a stock.

      If he's shorted the stock, he needs to find someone willing to sell him stock, not willing to buy his stock. If it goes to zero that's the best possible case, as he gets to keep his money without having to return the stock at all.

      Shorting stock is essentially selling shares you don't have and so you owe them to someone else (e.g. your broker). You do this in the expectation that the price will go down, whereby you can cover your debt of shares by buying the shares at a lower price than you sold them for, profitting on the difference).

      It *sort* of works likes this:

      You have 0$

      You make a deal to 'borrow' 1000 shares valued at $1, which you'll have to return at some point. You immediately sell those shares for $1000, putting $1000 in your pocket. The shares have now been 'shorted'. You have $1000, you owe your broker 1000 shares.

      Two weeks later the price is 0.50 cents, you buy 1000 shares for $500.
      Now you have 1000 shares and $500, and you owe your broker 1000 shares.

      You return the 1000 shares.

      You now have $500 in your pocket, that you didn't have before, and no debt.

      Of course its more complex than this, there are transaction fees, interest charges, and if the stock goes up and your account crosses a particular threshold the broker can force you to buy the shares at the current higher market price to cover the shorted shores. (ie 'foreclose' on your loan).

      Shorting is inherently riskier than going long (buying and holding and selling) because when long the worst that can happen is the stock can go to zero and you lose it all, and the best that can happen is that the stock will increase many times over.

      With shorting you can lose your investment many times over as there is no limit to how high the stock goes, and at most can only gain 100% of the transaction value, should the stock become worthless.

      In the example above, if the stock were to spike to $5 and your broker called you, you'd have to pay $5000 to return the shares you borrowed, putting you deep in the whole.

      ----

      Anyhow the OP was wondering, where exectly he could buy those shares he owes, if it gets delisted. And via OTC pink slips is where the action will be.

      Being delisted doesn't mean SCO shares can't be traded, merely that they can't be traded on the exchange. Getting delisted tends to push the price even further down, because shares traded OTC are less liquid, therefore less desirable, therefore worth less. Of course, that's just more good news for the OP. :)

      Having your trading halted on the other hand, means just that. No trading.

    16. Re:What happens? by proverbialcow · · Score: 3, Funny

      Of course, the company behind Charmin has a viable business model.

      They have the same basic business model as the traders who shorted SCO stock - they all rely on other people being full of shit.

      --
      The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
    17. Re:What happens? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 1

      Well when you look at human you see a beautiful unique snowflake. But when when a wall street broker looks at a client they see worst case $20,000 worth of kidneys, $40,000 worth of corneas and so on.

      --
      echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
    18. Re:What happens? by mike2R · · Score: 1

      I think there are more shorts than holders.

      Is that possible? I thought you had to find someone to loan you real stock before you could sell it short.

      --
      This sig all sigs devours
    19. Re:What happens? by rfunches · · Score: 1

      However you'll have a hard time paying your $14 ($7 each way) commission on that.
      If you have an account with an actual trading firm (e.g. Interactive Brokers) it costs as little as $2.01 to go round-trip on a stock ($1 to buy, $1 to sell plus $.01 for the specialist/SEC fees). However some brokers have restrictions on stocks less than $1 from an additional charge to a maintenance requirement, like 1/2 of principal. That's why I moved most of my assets out of Scottrade to one of those trading firms that cater to daytraders, to cut my commission costs on a stock from $14 to $2.01.
    20. Re:What happens? by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 1
      1. The absolute prices of shares of a company are not a meaningful number. The meaningful numbers are ratios between that price and other, meaningful quantities like shares outstanding, and the price at other points in time.
      2. The stock of a bankrupt company will most likely go to 0. Remember, creditors are first in line to be paid before shareholders. The only way that the stock of a bankrupt company can be valuable is if there is any equity left after all creditors are fully compensated--unlikely. The most likely outcome is that if the company survives at all, it will be owned by the former creditors, and the reorganization will cancel all pre-bankruptcy shares. A share of stock that does not entitle anbody anymore to a share of the profits of a company is worth nothing.
    21. Re:What happens? by sasdrtx · · Score: 1

      You just relax. Your profit is 100%. You can't "buy" worthless stock.

      --
      Most people don't even think inside the box.
  4. "a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technology" by tokki · · Score: 5, Insightful
    a leading provider of UNIX(R) software technology and mobile services,

    So, leading providers often file Chapter 11?

  5. I only wish by pembo13 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I could some how take credit for this, it seems like a positive achievement.

    --
    "Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
  6. Slashdot contributed a lot. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm guessing that Slashdot contributed a lot in making the right thing happen concerning SCO. Slashdot got the message out to everyone, over and over again, helping deprive SCO of profit from confused executives.

    1. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by Orthuberra · · Score: 1

      Ssshh, quiet you don't want Darl to start suing Slashdot for unfair competition do you? :D

    2. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by shanen · · Score: 2, Funny

      Right. Those "confused executives" just looked for 'insightful' mods on /. and they knew what to do. Riiiiight.

      Seriously, folks. No applause, no mod points, just throw money.

      As for SCO, I predict their SCOX stock prices will have be reported using infinitesimals before the 27th. I knew I studied all that math stuff for some reason.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    3. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by yani · · Score: 1

      One wonders how many executives read Slashdot... or even how many people within talking distance in the company hierarchy for that matter.

    4. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by shanen · · Score: 1

      Oh, yeah. As I noted in my first response to the first SCO bankruptcy article, I think they should have reduced the entire topic to a poll. That could have spanned the entire period without all the minor variations. Not quite dupes, but close enough for government work.

      --
      Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
    5. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by dosh8er · · Score: 1

      ... because confused execs sit in their parent's basement and surf slashdot at all hours of the day. Not to discredit the wonders of the /. system, because /.ing is a real phenomenon (ask any down-to-earth web admin), they had it coming, and many in the /. crowd were just waiting. This was an inevitable event, since SCO's stock a few months back was no more than 27ish cents... dear god, why didn't anyone put a bullet in that poor horse when it got out of hand? Well folks, just proves, even with a lot of high dollar lawyers, you still can't get out of jail free card. I hope this will stand as a standard for those twisted enough to try this kind of crap-- whether it be civil (Paris, OJ, et al) or business in SCO's case. It's these little victories that give me hope for the future of our judicial system. Perhaps a few more people will wake up and drink some coffee... speaking of which... ...i'm out.

      --
      This useless space for sale, inquire at front desk.
    6. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by el+cisne · · Score: 1

      Speaking of confused....or maybe just comatose...here's a quote from The Didiot :

      "'It is clearly a red light,' said Laura DiDio, an analyst at The Yankee Group in Boston. 'If I were an investor, I would be very concerned.'

    7. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by hedwards · · Score: 1

      Why not? I'm sure that Cowboy Neal could use a couple gold Ferraris. I mean you've seen the effect that Sco has on the parties they sue.

    8. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try again. It was Groklaw.

    9. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by Nefarious+Wheel · · Score: 1

      Actually full marks go to PJ. Groklaw rocks!!

      --
      Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
    10. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by larry+bagina · · Score: 2, Funny

      if executives are anything like slashdot editors, I'd wager none.

      --
      Do you even lift?

      These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

    11. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Actually, I think they did. Remember all the stories where Darl and other higher ups were selling off their shares why they could and everyone here was calling for SEC investigations?

      They must have seen this coming a long time ago just like it has been prophesied here many times.

    12. Re:Slashdot contributed a lot. by swamp+boy · · Score: 1

      "confused executives"

      Hmmm.... Isn't that redundant?

  7. Delisting by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Looks like they're heading for the pink sheets!

  8. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by jcr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    SGI did, but they also pulled out of bankruptcy.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  9. Not as big a deal as it sounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    NASDAQ delisted dot-com darling Salon.com (SALN), but its corpse has managed to shuffle around long enough to make it into the glorious Web 2.0 era. The SCO may also rise again.

    1. Re:Not as big a deal as it sounds by Dunbal · · Score: 3, Insightful

      NASDAQ delisted dot-com darling Salon.com (SALN), but its corpse has managed to shuffle around long enough to make it into the glorious Web 2.0 era. The SCO may also rise again.

            Somehow I doubt it. Salon.com didn't start suing people with bogus claims. I'm sure certain influential and VERY large corporations will see it as their duty that SCO won't rise again...

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    2. Re:Not as big a deal as it sounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Darl, is this you? (Or maybe a family member?)

    3. Re:Not as big a deal as it sounds by dbIII · · Score: 1
      SCO are not the problem and never was. Darl is the problem and he will rise again - most likely in a larger company with a larger pay packet. From a certain flawed perspective Darl is the underdog that took on IBM - and he would have got away with it too if it wasn't for those darned kids and their penguin.

      There is also the view that you have to appoint one of the aristocracy to head up a company even if all you have is an idiot cousin - pretty sad that feudalism and clueless barbarian managers are around in the modern day in a capitalist democratic state.

  10. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps leading suppliers of UNIX do...

    Cordially,

    A FreeBSD user

  11. in mother russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nasdaq delists you!

    1. Re:in mother russia by eneville · · Score: 1

      fpb vf gur fbhaq n juber znxrf jura pubxvat ba pbpx

    2. Re:in mother russia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Best. Delisting. Ever!

  12. This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I started investing my $20,000 student loan instead of using it to get my MBA. Well, I bought about $7000 worth SCOX stock back when it was worth a little more than a dollar. Well, now I am very worried about what is going to happen to my investment. It is bad enough that it has depreciated more than five times what I paid. And to those wondering... I didn't buy the SCOX stock because I thought The SCO Group would win against IBM. And I use Linux a lot. I bought the SCO stock because I thought their UnixWare and Open Server offerings were valuable enough that in time the market would weigh them instead of voting. I really hope Darl can turn this around pretty fast. Posted anonymously for obvious reasons.

    1. Re:This is really bad news for me. by drspliff · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I'd bet you're the kinda person who sees a steaming pile of shit and goes "Oh goody, I'll make hundereds selling it off as compost".

      Tough luck with the SCO stock though, not sure why the steaming pile of shit analogy came to mind there though!

    2. Re:This is really bad news for me. by kcbanner · · Score: 3, Funny

      So why didn't you get the MBA instead of investing the loan?

      --
      Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
    3. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      Hahahahahahahah

      I shorted SCO right as the lawsuits started flying. Made an easy $100k. You'd have to be retarded to think they were going to be successful in *any* way. THANKS!

    4. Re:This is really bad news for me. by 19thNervousBreakdown · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm reminded of this quote:

      <kylev> BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
      <kylev> hahahahaha
      <kylev> some girl just came onto our floor
      <kylev> and was yelling "sexual favors for anyone who does my sociology paper"
      <kylev> i just asked her what the paper was about
      <kylev> and she said the accomplishments and growth of feminism
      <`Neo> bahahahaha

      --
      <xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
    5. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I suggest going after the company directors. They're the jokers who got the company (and therefore your stake in it) into the fraudulent mess of lawsuits that killed it..

    6. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      I really hope Darl can turn this around pretty fast.

            Hope turns men into fools. You should have cut and run a long time ago, and yet still you hang on. Hello, it's going to be DE-LISTED. So unless you want to try to sell your stock in the classifieds, I'd accept my losses and get out while I can. 10 cents on the dollar is better than zero.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    7. Re:This is really bad news for me. by SL+Baur · · Score: 1

      So sorry about your investment, but you're invited over to a kegger at my place with your notebook computer where a friend of mine has arranged a special web feed where we can see SCOX being dropped off the NASDAQ in real time - kind of like the ball dropping in Times Square in NYC at the stroke of midnight. Bring your own fireworks.

      Cheers!

    8. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Splab · · Score: 1

      Never understood the shorted thing, but if I had the money and was living in the US I would have gone for that option (well I at least understand that you are somewhat betting against them doing good, and SCO was a dead fish).

    9. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Informative

      Shorting is simply selling what you don't have. Stock certificates are just pieces of paper. And your broker probably has a huge inventory of stock in his portfolio. So when you "short" something you are basically telling your broker that you agree to sell a stock that you don't own. There's no problem with this, since there are rigid mechanisms in place (today) to avoid fraud.

      If you sell stock you don't own you HAVE to buy it back OR make good the monetary difference at some point in the future.

      So let's say you "short" 100 shares of SCO when it is at $10 a share (yeah right). Your broker deposits $1000 in your account and records your sale. He may or may not have to adjust his own share inventory at this point, but as far as you are concerned you just "made" $1000.

      Now if the price goes up, say to $15 per share, it would cost you $1500 to buy those 100 shares back. If you have plenty of money in your investment account your broker will just let it slide. But if you run out of credit (ie you don't have more than $1500), your broker will oblige you to buy back the stock, since he no longer has any assurance that you will be able to pay if the stock keeps going up. This is how you get screwed with short sales.

      On the other hand, if the stock goes DOWN, say to $5 a share, then you are laughing, because once you decide to "cash in" on your investment, you "buy back" the 100 shares you sold at the current price of $500 ($5 per share). That means you pay $500 out of your account. But remember that your broker has already put $1000 in your account from the short sale you made earlier. So you've earned the balance - $1000 you were given for "selling" the stock short, less $500 to "buy back" the stock and close your commitment with your broker leaves you a profit of $500.

      This is a bit off-topic but I felt like writing. Hopefully you understand "short" selling now. Just remember that ALL stocks tend to RISE in value over time (unless there's something REALLY wrong with the company/sector/economy). It's not easy to make money by selling short, but when you spot a stock that is ridiculously overvalued, well, what goes up must also come down at some point. Judging when to buy and when to sell is what makes the difference between people who lose on Wall St. and people who win. And remember, if it was easy, everyone would be rich.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    10. Re:This is really bad news for me. by TheDugong · · Score: 1

      "everyone would be rich."

      Surely the value of the $CURRENCY would fall and/or inflation would rise dramatically instead?

    11. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      I shorted SCO right as the lawsuits started flying. Made an easy $100k.

      If you shorted it right away you probably went broke. A *lot* of people shorted it in the $8-$10 range, only to see it run to $20. If you were one of those, either you busted out or you didn't have a very big position.

    12. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Surely the value of the $CURRENCY would fall and/or inflation would rise dramatically instead?

      That would be the "standard" way of thinking.

      IANAE (an economist), but not necessarily. Look at the dot-com bubble in 2001. Tech stocks were a SURE thing, anyone and everyone made oodles of money in stocks (at least, anyone who invested in tech), and instead of inflation we saw economic expansion - because people (corporations) invested their profits in - more tech! Only when the bubble popped the correction came when the people who thought they were rich found out that really they weren't. All they had was lots of fancy paper in the form of stock certificates.

            So in a sense what happened was that money was borrowed from the future and invested in tech infrastructure. Those who really ended up paying for that investment are the people who lost, but still today we benefit from all that excess capacity in our communication systems. To the point where sending data around the world is almost free. Despite what the telcos would have you believe.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    13. Re:This is really bad news for me. by thebear05 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You put 35% of a 20,000 portfolio in a single stock ? if this were a result of options... but if you have a 20,000 portfolio you are poorly diversified and deserve what happens

    14. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't go broke until you buy it back at the higher price. If you hold on to it until it really tanks (aka, now), you still make money. Lots of it.

    15. Re:This is really bad news for me. by ultranova · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The quote is only funny if you think that prostitution - trading sexual favors for other favors - is inherently incompatible with feminism. I see little reason why it would be, unless one considers every prostitute a victim of oppression, which hardly seems to be the case here.

      Just because you're a feminist doesn't mean you need to be good at writing papers, or be willing to exert the time and energy to do so, nor does it mean that you need consider sexual favors degrading. It simply means that you want women to have an equally powerful (socially and legally) position as men. Whether that position includes "I suck your dick/cunt if you do something for me" is up to the individual.

      Sorry about the offtopic rant, but this shit keeps on circulating here in Finland, where some people want to ban prostitution "for their own good", and that kind of oppression - forbidding adults from doing something just because you don't happen to like it - gets my hackles up.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    16. Re:This is really bad news for me. by bytesex · · Score: 0

      Shorting can usually only be done on the same trading day. Otherwise, you're talking futures.

      --
      Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
    17. Re:This is really bad news for me. by absoluteflatness · · Score: 1

      Options is probably what you were thinking of. An option gives you the right to buy/sell X stock at Y price on Z day, but you don't have to do so. Futures are similar, but come with an obligation to make the transaction, and are generally for physical commodities, not securities.

    18. Re:This is really bad news for me. by marvinglenn · · Score: 1

      Shorting is simply selling what you don't have. [...]

      I think a more accurate description is to say that you're renting stock. You rent some stock, sell it, and then have to buy it in the future when the term of your rent is up.

      --
      The whores get mad when the sluts give it away for free.
    19. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Chief+Camel+Breeder · · Score: 1

      "Shorting is simply selling what you don't have. Stock certificates are just pieces of paper. And your broker probably has a huge inventory of stock in his portfolio. So when you "short" something you are basically telling your broker that you agree to sell a stock that you don't own. There's no problem with this, since there are rigid mechanisms in place (today) to avoid fraud."

      The whole concept sounds fraudulent to me: pretend to sell stock you don't have so as to artificially depress its value so that you can profit without actually investing. It defeats the Market's purpose of promoting investment and makes things unecessarilt unstable.

      PS: thanks for the clear explanation of the shorting process.

    20. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Opportunist · · Score: 2, Informative

      You should maybe add that shorting stock usually requires someone who's willing to buy the stocks. Selling short (or rather, more to the point, buying a put option) requires someone who agrees to it.

      It's not as uncommon as it sounds, and it has more appliances than just a "bet on the future stock value". Companies do it to have a determined price to expect (this is especially true for puts/calls on foreign currencies) for a future business. Say, you need 20k USD in 2 months but want to be sure to get them for a certain price, no matter how the market develops (ok, not so terribly important for the USD, despite its nosedive currently, but if you're dealing in RUB or CNY you might want to have a reliable exchange rate), you find someone who agrees to sell you those 20k USD in 2 months for a predetermined rate. Your business partner's problem might be the reverse, he gets 20k USD in 2 months and needs to have a reliable rate, too. Many publically listed companies actually have that problem. For them, such a trade is actually a kind of insurance that, no matter how the rates really develop, they know today whether they can make the deal or not. During my time at a bank I've seen options that spanned a few years for amounts that made my head spin, funny enough it was sometimes even in currencies that are no longer in existance (it was around 2002, when the EU adopted the Euro. It's kinda interesting to see BEF/DEM options floating about in 2003 which don't really make sense from a common sense point of view, both currencies having been replaced by the EUR and had a fixed exchange rate).

      Generally though, to get back on (or off) topic, you need someone who agrees to this deal. And usually what's needed to get someone to agree, especially if it's pretty much a given that the price will drop, is to fork over some money. Then it's a "bet" between the seller and buyer on how much it will drop. A little example:

      SCO shares cost 1 buck today. You expect them to fall, and you think they should be around 10 cents in 2 months. So you'd want to sell short (i.e. make a put opt). Someone else thinks they'll drop, too, but he expects them to be at 50 cents in 2 months. So he'd probably agree to be your partner if you pay him 60 cents for every share you want to short. So, technically, you "sell" them for 40 cents (you get 1 dollar but have to pay 60 cents to your partner), if they drop below 40 cents in 2 months you cash in, if not, your partner has won.

      Free options are rare, most of the time one side has to pay the difference to the "expected value". And option trade is something I wouldn't touch, I simply don't know enough about the market to deal with such highly volatile papers.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    21. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      So you'd say, getting that MBA would've been the better option?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    22. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      You don't go broke until you buy it back at the higher price.

      Only if you have the money to cover it. And if you shorted at say 7 or 8, by the time it got to 20 you'd be scrambling to come up with the cash, and sooner or later you'd capitulate. And if you didn't have enough in your account your broker would automatically close you out by buying at the current market price, leaving an enormous hole in your bankroll.

      It's one thing to short on paper, it's an *entirely* different thing to do it for real money. When there's real money on the line and you watch it rocket up sometime $2 and $3 a day, you'd be suicidal to just stand there and take it.

    23. Re:This is really bad news for me. by bytesex · · Score: 1

      The guy was talking (out of his ass, obviously) about making a profit from a declining stock price. He also made it seem as if this happened over a longer period of time. Doing this by going short obviously isn't going to do it - markets want a balanced book by the end of the trading day. Options might do it, but only if you can find a trader who wants to sell you the right to purchase stock (now worth $20) in three months time (when you think it has declined to, say, $3) for $1 (if you want to make a profit of $2 a piece) - good luck with that.

      --
      Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
    24. Re:This is really bad news for me. by stanmann · · Score: 3, Informative

      Short selling is typically a long term(30-90 days or more) option. Its not a day trading option for sure. You really should do some sort of research or reading before you spout off knowing nothing.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_selling
      http://www.investopedia.com/university/shortselling/shortselling1.asp
      Just for a couple examples.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    25. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Quite right. He sounds like perfect MBA material.

    26. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Zeinfeld · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Lets see, $7,000 out of $20,000. Thats a third of your capital on a penny stock. Thats not investing, thats gambling. If you had taken the time to look into the company you would know that the software assets are in hock to the lawyers. If you had been following the stock you would have got out when they lost the Novell case.

      $20K is peanuts as far as an investment stake is concerned. An MBA is worth upwards of $20K a year. You would have to turn the $20K to $400K to match. Not very likely.

      If you want an investment, there is nothing better than education. There is no stock that can turn $20K into a $20K annuity in two years.

      On the other hand the most likely story is that this is simply someone out to yank everyone's chain by constructing a sob story that gives everyone a good chuckle.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    27. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Tumbarumba · · Score: 1

      How to make money on the stock market: buy low, sell high.

      Alternative strategy: sell high, buy low.

      Some concept, slightly different order.

      --
      My business: Farstrider Studios.
    28. Re:This is really bad news for me. by smittyoneeach · · Score: 3, Funny

      I was just in New York City, and I remember thinking, walking through Times Square, "This is kinda like Vegas without the casinos."
      Now I realize: casinos are chump change compared to Wall Street, where the real high-rollers go.

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    29. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Zeinfeld · · Score: 3, Informative
      There are a couple of reasons why shorting SCOX was a bad, bad, idea. Obdislcaimer: this is not investment advice, I am not responsible if you blow your MBA fund (bwahhaahhhaa).

      First off there is the price. There is a rule that says that when you short a stock below $5 the margin you have to provide never falls below $5 a share. So to short 100,000 SCOX shares you would need $0.5 million in cash or $1 million in stock. With SCOX at $0.50 you would net a maximum of $50,0000 if you won. But if for whatever reason the markets thought SCO looked like winning the case and the stock spiked to $10 you would be down $1 million.

      The second reason to avoid shorting stocks as bad as SCO is that the short interest can keep the stock afloat all on its own. That is known as a short squeeze. I shorted a complete POS stock that was trading at $20. The company had no revenues and had recently done a SCO like idiot move. I bought to cover at $40, the stock hit $100 at the peak. All this despite the fact that they had no business. it took two years for the stock to drop to 50 cents, which is still overpriced.

      There are certainly times when a short makes sense. When the technical staf of Cybercash all posted to the IETF mailing lists that their email address would change later that day it was clear that the game was up (public knowledge means its not insider trading). I made $20K on that short which partly covers the $50K I lost on the other.

      The usual reason for using a short is to balance out a portfolio, insuring against a drop in the market. Obviously you want to pick a dog or a grossly overvalued stock since those will probably drop furthest and fastest. For example plenty of people recon that Google will remain king of the search engine space. So they put $100K on Google and short $25K on Yahoo. If search booms they make money on Google and loose some on Yahoo. If search crashes they cover part of their losses on Yahoo. Another reason for using shorts is to hedge an option strategy. From time to time it is possible to play arbitrage between the options market and the equity markets.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    30. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Kierthos · · Score: 1

      The thing is, you have no guarantee that the stock will go down. Yeah, you could sell 10,000 shares of COMPANY short, but if the stock goes up instead of down, you lose money.

      The only way it would be fraud would be if you were the CEO (or some other company officer or had insider information) of COMPANY and used your position to easily manipulate the stock price.

      And, I think even with all the bone-headed things that Darl McBride has done, we really can't say he's so stupid as to try and pull off this kind of stock manipulation with no expectation of getting caught. (I'm not saying he did. I'm saying if he did, he should reasonably expect to get caught at it.)

      --
      Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
    31. Re:This is really bad news for me. by TheUglyAmerican · · Score: 1

      Very well put.

      It should also be noted that with regular stock buying and selling, your loss is capped but your profit virtually unlimited. That is if you pay $1000 for a stock you can never lose more than $1000 (assuming value goes to zero). However your profit can be very high.

      Shorting stock though is the other way around. Your profit is capped and your potential for loss virtually unlimited. Taking the parent's example where you get $1000 from a short sale, that is your maximum profit (again assuming the value goes to zero when you have to "buy" the shares). On the other hand your lose can be virtually unlimited if the stock value rises.

      --
      "Written on the pages is the answer to the never ending story..."
    32. Re:This is really bad news for me. by bytesex · · Score: 1

      When I was working in stocks (granted, this is the Amsterdam Exchange before Euronext we're talking about), you took a short position from the exchange itself and you couldn't get it for more than a day (if you could get it at all). I suppose if you're talking about a private broker, then you can effectively have a short position for as long as you like - mind you, your broker must like it too, or there won't be a deal - after all, it becomes more of a borrowing bet when you stretch it longer.

      --
      Religion is what happens when nature strikes and groupthink goes wrong.
    33. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Zeinfeld · · Score: 1
      If you shorted it right away you probably went broke. A *lot* of people shorted it in the $8-$10 range, only to see it run to $20. If you were one of those, either you busted out or you didn't have a very big position.

      Or he had enough cash to cover the short.

      --
      Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
      Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
    34. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Sexual favors for anyone who mods up this witty response.

    35. Re:This is really bad news for me. by knight24k · · Score: 1

      Shorting stock though is the other way around. Your profit is capped and your potential for loss virtually unlimited. Taking the parent's example where you get $1000 from a short sale, that is your maximum profit (again assuming the value goes to zero when you have to "buy" the shares). On the other hand your lose can be virtually unlimited if the stock value rises.
      And this is where the difference between shorting stock and buying put options becomes apparent. While some have equated them as the same they are actually quite different. At best you might call them equivalent except for how they play out in the above scenario. Buying options, whether you are buying long or short (calls or puts), never expose you to loss more than your original investment. If you were to buy 10 put contracts of SCO at $5.00 premium per contract your only exposure would be the $5,000 you initially invested (1 contract = 100 shares, $5 per share*1000). Even if SCO were to jump $20-30 you could only lose your initial $5,000. Same goes for calls in the other direction.

      There are option strategies that have much higher levels of risk, but that is another discussion. This is all assuming the SCO was optionable to begin with, not all stocks are. The unlimited downside of selling short also assumes that the investor did not place any stop loss orders on the position. While there may be reasons to do that I consider it very foolish.
    36. Re:This is really bad news for me. by MegaFur · · Score: 1

      Actually, I don't think trading sexual favors for other favors is inherently incompatible with feminism, but I still thought it was funny.

      Although I guess if I lived in Finland, and had to deal with anti-personal choice people trying to ban prostitution, it'd probably get my hackles up too.

      --
      Furry cows moo and decompress.
    37. Re:This is really bad news for me. by swillden · · Score: 1

      The second reason to avoid shorting stocks as bad as SCO is that the short interest can keep the stock afloat all on its own. That is known as a short squeeze.

      If I understand you, this isn't right. When there is a great deal of interest in shorting a stock, the result is an influx of sellers into the market which drives the price down. Lots of short interest doesn't maintain the stock price, it pushes it down. After it drops some, shorts getting out initiate buy orders which can hold it at the lower level, but that doesn't cause a squeeze.

      The squeeze comes when the price goes up, for whatever reason. As the price rises, some of the shorts decide to get out, either because they're no longer confident in their position or because they don't have enough assets to hold the position (the broker needs an assurance that the investor actually can buy back the shorted stock). Either way, when they start trying to buy to close out their short positions, the influx of buyers on the market drives the price up. The rising price triggers more short investors to get out (willingly or not), flooding the market with more buy orders. The cycle repeats, and many of the shorts lose huge amounts of money.

      Where this can get really nasty is with small, thinly-traded stocks that are heavily shorted. If the holders of the long positions want to, and have the funds, they can force a short squeeze by going on a buying spree, deliberately pushing the price up to force the shorts out and thereby pushing the price even higher. When the price goes high enough, they can sell out part of their position and perhaps profit hugely, directly from the losses of the shorts. It sounds like that may be what happened to you.

      In the case of SCOX, it was clear that some of the holders of large long positions were engaging in a little market manipulation, "painting" the stock to keep the price up, but I didn't think they had the capital for the kind of purchases needed to actually drive it up and initiate a short squeeze. So I shorted SCOX at about 15 and bought it back at about 4, making a tidy profit on Darl's stupidity. Thanks Darl!

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    38. Re:This is really bad news for me. by JoeCommodore · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yep it's not about "investing" anymore, it's about gambling via stocks. (goooo Apple, big money, commmeee-on, biiiigg money!)

      Too many people are suffering the quick return addiction:

      - on investment, day-traders buy low and sell back quick high (sometimes)

      - companies hire pre-trained people for low wages and work them raw for high profits (then dump them instead of training if the skills need change)

      - Companies go to outsourcing their skills and talent because it looks good on the books now (but not good for the company's value in the long term)

      - Schools teach kids to pass tests now, not to be employable in the future.

      Yeah, really bad.

      --
      "Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
    39. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      I started investing my $20,000 student loan instead of using it to get my MBA. Well, I bought about $7000 worth SCOX stock back when it was worth a little more than a dollar.

      Actually, that $20K probably bought you a better education than most of your classmates got. You got off cheap.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    40. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      If I understand you, this isn't right. When there is a great deal of interest in shorting a stock, the result is an influx of sellers into the market which drives the price down.

            No it doesn't.

            I agree what according to supply and demand, it should - but supply and demand says that when there's an oversupply, buyers will be less willing to pay top dollar for the widget and sellers will accept a discounted price to reduce their inventory.

            But with short selling, the objective of the seller is to screw you. Every extra penny is a bit of extra profit for the seller, therefore there is NO downward pressure. If anything, there is UPWARD pressure. No one is "desperate" to short a stock. You either take my price, or leave it. This can cause the price to increase a bit - and this can cause buyers to think "now is the time to buy, the price is going up" - increasing demand. It can also cause the first people who shorted at a lower price to rethink their position and cover their short sale before losing too much, also adding to demand.

            It is so damned easy to lose money by shorting stock. The timing has to be perfect. And it takes a LOT of balls to hold a short position for a long time.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    41. Re:This is really bad news for me. by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      Or in the US where in every state except Nevada prostitution is illegal already. Doesn't make much sense that picking up a random girl at a club and getting it on is perfectly legal but paying an equally random girl to do the same thing is not. Both should be either illegal or not - the fact that money is exchanged shouldn't be legally relevant to the situation. Hell down here in the "Bible Belt" south we even have strong pressure against strip clubs. People who go in there KNOW what's going on. You don't walk in and be like "OMG TEH BOOBIES! RUN!?!?!?!". Why mess with a bunch of legal adults who are having a good time? Yet we still have places instituting "6 ft rules", or no "full nude" clubs (which means that a girl has to keep her panties on while on stage - luckily through a legal loophole most of them keep them "on" by wrapping them around their wrist while on stage . . . ").

      Oh well. I doubt the situation will change anytime soon.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    42. Re:This is really bad news for me. by gumpish · · Score: 1

      Just because you're a feminist doesn't mean ... that you need consider sexual favors degrading.
      Degrading? Perhaps not, but anyone who denies that the sexual dynamic between mammals is one in which the female submits to the male isn't living in the real world.
    43. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      he didn't learn anything in the end, so no

    44. Re:This is really bad news for me. by stanmann · · Score: 1

      Yes, the broker collects interest on the loan, and a servicing fee above that.

      --
      Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
    45. Re:This is really bad news for me. by ultranova · · Score: 1

      Just because you're a feminist doesn't mean ... that you need consider sexual favors degrading.

      Degrading? Perhaps not, but anyone who denies that the sexual dynamic between mammals is one in which the female submits to the male isn't living in the real world.

      If your statement is assumed to be true, and such submission is assumed to be relevant, then logically a feminist can't ever engage in sex, for pay or for free. After all, she'd end up submitting in either case; in fact, a case could be made that getting paid to pretend submission would be better than submitting for free.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    46. Re:This is really bad news for me. by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 1

      In America, prostitution is already illegal and the feminists are the most anti-sex people around, along with the evangelical Christians.

      --
      In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
    47. Re:This is really bad news for me. by javaxjb · · Score: 1
      The whole concept sounds fraudulent to me: pretend to sell stock you don't have so as to artificially depress its value so that you can profit without actually investing. It defeats the Market's purpose of promoting investment and makes things unecessarilt unstable.

      This is a fairly common opinion, but actually the opposite is true. Short selling improves market efficiency by providing a corrective action. There are other factors not mentioned in GP that make short selling less abusive and more dangerous to the short seller. For example, shares may only be shorted if you can obtain shares to borrow. Those borrowed shares must be in a margin account, in street name by the brokerage (you cannot borrow shares that an individual holds as certificates), and a given share cannot be loaned more than once. Furthermore, the lender may call back the shares at any time and force you to pay the current price (or find someone else who will loan you replacement shares--this is handled by the broker). These rules prevents cornering of the market where the person loaning the shares can "create" more virtual shares than actually exist and then force the borrowers to pay any outrageous price they want to set. A scaled back example of this occurs in a short squeeze where so many shares are short that something prompts a number of lenders to call there shares back (or shorts panic because of unexpectedly high earnings that force margin calls) and suddenly a flood of shorts start buying to prevent mounting losses and the stock price moves up sharply.

      It's actually easier for longs to manipulate prices higher than for shorts to manipulate them lower. Shorts give the market a chance to return balance attempted manipulation on the long side. Moreover, learning to short really hones investing skills because you must learn to be much more thorough in your analysis lest you set yourself up for some nasty losses because you didn't fully appreciate a company's potential or how nasty a short squeeze might be if you short into a company that already has a large percentage of the float (or trading volume) already shorted.

      --
      Programmers in mirror are brighter than they appear
    48. Re:This is really bad news for me. by swillden · · Score: 1

      Every extra penny is a bit of extra profit for the seller

      Huh? This is always the case, with any seller.

      If anything, there is UPWARD pressure. No one is "desperate" to short a stock. You either take my price, or leave it

      This (a) makes no sense and (b) does not accord with my experience. Sure, short-sellers usually submit limit orders, trying to get a higher price, but sellers of long positions do the same. Short selling pushes the price down because it satisfies the demand at the short-seller's price point, and above.

      It is so damned easy to lose money by shorting stock.

      No argument from me there. Buying long means that the most you can lose is what you paid, and there's no limit to what you can make. Selling short means that you can lose everything you have, and the most you can make is what you got up front. It's risky. Shorting SCO was a good bet, though.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    49. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "the feminists"? Just curious, what decade is it in your world?

    50. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Bemopolis · · Score: 1

      Thank you, Andrea Dworkin.

      waitasec...aren't you dead?

      --
      "I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
    51. Re:This is really bad news for me. by smellsofbikes · · Score: 1

      About two months ago Iceland legalized prostitution, while simultaneously illegalizing (effectively) strip clubs. They did so by a very interesting idea: they said prostitution is legal, but it is not legal to profit off someone else's sexual behavior or conduct. Meaning: no pimps, no procurers, no madams, and, by extension, no corporate- or not-stripping-strip-club-owners. Presumably a coop (like one strip club in Seattle, I'm told) would be legal.

      I think it's an interesting, and probably good, idea. The only question is whether it's degrading and/or entrapping because women (or men) choose it because it's the only way they can make financial ends meet, but I think in any primarily capitalist society that's always going to be the case for some jobs.

      --
      Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
    52. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Bemopolis · · Score: 1

      This (a) makes no sense and (b) does not accord with my experience. Sure, short-sellers usually submit limit orders, trying to get a higher price, but sellers of long positions do the same. Short selling pushes the price down because it satisfies the demand at the short-seller's price point, and above
      True, bt not every short seller puts in the same level of limit order. So, if the stock is heavily shorted, there IS upward pressure, because (ahem) every extra penny is profit for the seller. If there is a huge pool of shorters, sellers can afford to wait because the lower limit orders are plentiful enough to be filled by other sellers.

      (Disclaimer: I did not invest my MBA loan in any stock instead of getting my MBA, because I am not stupid enough to do that. Or stupid enough to get into an MBA program, for that matter.)
      --
      "I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
    53. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      As George Carlin once observed:

      Selling is legal.

      Fucking is legal.

      So why is selling fucking illegal?

    54. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Short sellers spotted irregularities in Enrons books before the authorities did. So short selling can be useful against fraud.

    55. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      Doing this by going short obviously isn't going to do it - markets want a balanced book by the end of the trading day.

      You can usually short a stock for years if you want to. It's done by in effect "borrowing" the stock from someone. In practice, the broker worries about that and for most stocks as far as you're concerned you simply hold a negative number of shares. Right now I have a stock in my portfolio that I've been short for weeks.

    56. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1
      Or he had enough cash to cover the short.

      Sure. But at that point you're just turing it into a Martingale. Looking at the chart now and checking some emails I wrote, when I first thought about shorting it the price was under ten dollars. Fortunately I did not actually do it. If I had I'd have seen the price quickly go to $20. Now not only am I looking at a huge loss, but I can't know that this is the top. What if it goes to 30 or 40? Absurd? Yes, but absurd things happen. Going to $20 was absurd!

      Suppose at that point IBM decides that instead of fighting that they decide to make some small settlement offer. If that had happened the stock will instantly double, and now you are really in trouble. What are you going to do? Risk everything you have to sweat this short out? At some point you have to take your medicine and cover your position.

      Even without that happening I would have had to have held onto that losing trade for more than two years in order to ride it out! And then another two to get to where we are today.

      Was there money to be made shorting SCOX? Yes, obviously. But to call it easy, as the original poster did, is just plain silly. You'd have earned every nickel of it.

    57. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      pretend to sell stock you don't have so as to artificially depress its value

      You've got it wrong. Stock is sold from the broker's holdings and you have to buy it back later and give it to the broker.

    58. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll suck your dick if you write a funny come back to your post for me.

    59. Re:This is really bad news for me. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BWAHAHAHAHA!!! Win.

    60. Re:This is really bad news for me. by eh2o · · Score: 1

      Are you trolling or do you really have no female friends?

    61. Re:This is really bad news for me. by The+One+and+Only · · Score: 1

      Not only do I have female friends, but I'm also roughly familiar with feminist ideologies, and very few feminists (aside from maybe the most sex-positive, individualist ones) have anything good to say about prostitution, and many of them have very little good to say about heterosexual sex in general. Most of the people who go around loudly proclaiming themselves "feminists" are the radicals, who are pretty far out of touch even with what most women think.

      --
      In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
  13. A good start, but... by russotto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Someone, maybe Novell, needs to ask the Bankruptcy Court to deny SCO's filing for Chapter 11 on the grounds that there's no way they can re-organize into a viable operation, and therefore they need to be liquidated. Then the creditors can auction off the honor of kicking Darl out on his ass.

    1. Re:A good start, but... by DaveAtFraud · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The conversion from chapter 11 (re-organization) to chapter 7 (liquidation) happens automatically if the company can't show how they can remain a going concern. Assuming Novell gets justice, this is a done deal.

      The judge in the SCO v. Novell case ruled that SCO retained money that legally belonged to Novell (the legal term is "conversion"). The amount has yet to be determined but chances are that it is greater than SCO's net worth ($30 million has been bandied about). Since this is money that SCO had no right to keep, Novell moves ahead of the creditor pack and SCO is toast. If you dig around on Groklaw, someone found the clause in the Asset Purchase Agreement (APA - the legal document that set up SCO as the bagman and overseer of Unix licenses) that states that money collected by SCO for Unix SVRX licenses belongs to Novell specifcally in case SCO declares bankruptcy.

      SCO is in the same position as a bank robber who tries to declare bankruptcy to avoid giving the bank back it's money. The bank robber may have other creditors but they have no claim on the money stolen from the bank since it's still the bank's money. SCO didn't rob a bank but they illegally converted money that belongs to Novell into their own which amounts to the same thing.

      I wonder if any of SCO's old trade show swag is at all interesting. Who knows, in fifty years it might be worth something on e-bay.

      Cheers,
      Dave

      --
      They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
      Ben
    2. Re:A good start, but... by DeepHurtn! · · Score: 1
      The bank robber may have other creditors but they have no claim on the money stolen from the bank since it's still the bank's money. SCO didn't rob a bank but they illegally converted money that belongs to Novell into their own which amounts to the same thing.

      Well, it's different because a bank robber might serve jail time, whereas Darl is laughing all the way to the bank. We (as a society) have nice legal and intellectual games to justify it when rich people do it.

    3. Re:A good start, but... by Threni · · Score: 1

      > Well, it's different because a bank robber might serve jail time, whereas Darl is laughing all the way to the bank. We (as a society) have nice
      > legal and intellectual games to justify it when rich people do it.

      Don't robbers force money out of people at gunpoint? Anyone who entered into a business relationship with SCO did so (or at least, should have done so) with knowledge of what the company was like. It's a gamble, and for some people it didn't pay off.
      .

    4. Re:A good start, but... by Jason+Levine · · Score: 1

      Someone, maybe Novell, needs to ask the Bankruptcy Court to deny SCO's filing for Chapter 11 on the grounds that there's no way they can re-organize into a viable operation, and therefore they need to be liquidated. Then the creditors can auction off the honor of kicking Darl out on his ass.


      Sure there's a way for them to become a viable operation. You know those dunk booths where you toss a ball at a target and knock someone into the water? Well, SCO can run one of those with Darl. Only instead of a target, you'd throw the ball at Darl, himself. Imagine everyone who would line up to pay for that chance! Investors, Linux enthusiasts, IBM, Novell, Red Hat, etc. Not only would they be viable quickly, but they would be able to pay for Darl's medical care after the repeated ball throws rendered him a vegetable. (Oh, and we would let Ballmer throw a chair at Darl for not taking out Linux. ;-) )
      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    5. Re:A good start, but... by russotto · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, it's different because a bank robber might serve jail time, whereas Darl is laughing all the way to the bank. We (as a society) have nice legal and intellectual games to justify it when rich people do it.
      It's rare, but it's not competely unheard-of to pierce the corporate veil and go after the officers and directors of a company.
  14. To echo the trolls of old... by Mr.+Flibble · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    For those of you who remember this tired old phrase:

    SHORT SCO NOW! *

    * this, for anyone who remembers just how long ago that was first heard on slashdot...

    --
    Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
    1. Re:To echo the trolls of old... by compro01 · · Score: 1

      just wondering, but what happens if the stock bottoms out (hits $0.00000...) when you've shorted it?

      --
      upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
    2. Re:To echo the trolls of old... by Hemogoblin · · Score: 1

      You buy the stock back for a penny and close your position.

    3. Re:To echo the trolls of old... by ciroknight · · Score: 1

      ..A whole penny? Why should I have to spend a whole penny if it's not even worth one billionth of that?

      --
      "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
    4. Re:To echo the trolls of old... by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      That's when you try to buy it back.

      Also, looking at the other guy (the one who bought your stock) and clicking your tongue while muttering "sucker" is valid at this point.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    5. Re:To echo the trolls of old... by OrangeTide · · Score: 1

      Then you've made pure profit, it would be like someone handing you a blank check.

      --
      “Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
    6. Re:To echo the trolls of old... by king-manic · · Score: 1

      just wondering, but what happens if the stock bottoms out (hits $0.00000...) when you've shorted it?

      You have an absolute floor of how much paper scraps are worth in your area if you have paper stock. If it was electronic then you may ask your broker to print your copies and then sell them for scrap.

      --
      "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
  15. When will it end? by allthefish · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    As much as I like seeing these guys suffer, I'm starting to think that its about enough of that. I know everyone was nervous during the suit; even though we all knew they had no legal leg to stand on, the US court system is not what it used to be. So most of us were afraid of the future of linux, and now we can justifiably laugh at them.

    However, i'm starting to get tired of hearing about The SCO Group in every third /. post. Really, we're giving them more attention then they deserve. The company never put out anything useful (SCO did. Caldera did. The SCO Group didn't), so its no wonder they're dying. Now really, can't we just let them die without all this coverage?

    1. Re:When will it end? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Now really, can't we just let them die without all this coverage?"

      It's our O.J.

    2. Re:When will it end? by Stephen+Ma · · Score: 1
      Now really, can't we just let them die without all this coverage?

      Because they deserve to be hated. Linux would not exist without hundreds of thousands of programmers giving away their works for free. Everyone contributed voluntarily, and the result is the greatest collection of high-quality software the world has ever known.

      SCO and Microsoft tried to destroy that. They tried to smear our reputations by implying that we stole at least some of the software. We stole nothing, of course. Why would we need to? We're at least as good as any of SCO's programmers, and our combined resources are vast. But for a year or two, SCO's lies received enormous media coverage, and our reputations suffered a bit. We are not going to forgive or forget that for a long, long time.

    3. Re:When will it end? by allthefish · · Score: 1

      I agree with you that SCO's lies attempted to smear our reputations (funded by M$, of course), but now that they've been proven wrong, they're trying to get as much media coverage as possible by suggesting that "Linux made us fail" and maintaining their own innocence. The most sadistic thing we could do, IMO, would be to not give them the attention. They've now been reduced to the level of a Livejournal attention whore, so it would me best to just let them become an hero in their own quiet little corner, denying them the attention they seek. Plus, anybody that knew about the case at all knew that it was a load of bollocks. Of all the people i've tried to discuss it with, they've all been like "uhhh...what's lunix?" or "bah, SCO is just flapping their gums".

    4. Re:When will it end? by Stephen+Ma · · Score: 1
      The most sadistic thing we could do, IMO, would be to not give them the attention. They've now been reduced to the level of a Livejournal attention whore, so it would me best to just let them become an hero in their own quiet little corner, denying them the attention they seek.

      I agree somewhat. It would be a form of revenge to bury SCOX deeply in the global memory hole.

      But I think we have to make an example of SCOX, for the deterrent effect. This is almost certainly IBM's major motivation in this case, because it would have been cheaper to settle with SCOX than to litigate. But IBM wants to deter other assholes from trying a similar extortion game, so nothing less than complete destruction of SCOX will do. Besides, deterrence doesn't work if nobody knows about it. Hence the loud celebrations.

  16. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by ls+-la · · Score: 1

    a leading provider of UNIX(R) software technology and mobile services,

    So, leading providers often file Chapter 11?

    Just leading providers of lawsuits.
  17. Good time for raises, too! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Informative

    From their Form 8-K filing:

    Item 5.02 Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers. On September 13, 2007, the Board of Directors (the "Board") of The SCO Group, Inc. (the "Company"), approved an increase in the base salary of Ryan E. Tibbitts. Mr. Tibbitts' base salary will be increased from $160,000 per year to $210,000 per year, effective as of September 3, 2007. In recognition of the significant contributions Mr. Tibbitts has made to the Company, the Board also approved a discretionary bonus of $50,000, net of taxes, to be paid to Mr. Tibbitts.

    Why yes, yes, this seems like a splendid time to start giving out raises.

    I'm pretty ignorant of finance and law, but is there any reason whatsoever for the stockholders not to sue the board into destitution at this point?

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    1. Re:Good time for raises, too! by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      Maybe it just means that they succeeded in whatever it is they really intended to do. And I would wager that many stockholders made out as well if they played it right. For some other investors, any losses can be easily absorbed by the rest of their portfolio.

      --
      What?
    2. Re:Good time for raises, too! by j.+andrew+rogers · · Score: 5, Informative

      The "pay raise" is a bribe by the board for key executives to not jump ship. It is a common pattern when companies are in trouble to put golden handcuffs on key people to keep them around to see the trouble through to the end rather than leaving for better climes with fewer risks. If you think about it, it makes a certain amount of economic sense.

    3. Re:Good time for raises, too! by roystgnr · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm pretty ignorant of finance and law, but is there any reason whatsoever for the stockholders not to sue the board into destitution at this point?

      You may think you're ignorant, but you're obviously head and shoulders above the people whose reasoning you're questioning. For all we know, the smartest current SCO stockholders might already have tried to call lawyers and file lawsuits, only to find themselves unable to figure out how to work the telephone.

    4. Re:Good time for raises, too! by jimicus · · Score: 1

      I'm pretty ignorant of finance and law, but is there any reason whatsoever for the stockholders not to sue the board into destitution at this point?

      No idea, but wasn't Mr. Tibbitts the name of one of the Bond villains' cats?

    5. Re:Good time for raises, too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      leaving for better crimes with fewer risks

      There. Fixed it for you.

    6. Re:Good time for raises, too! by bythescruff · · Score: 2, Funny

      "rather than leaving for better crimes with fewer risks."

      There you go - fixed that for ya.

      --
      Chuck Norris: Socialism == a thousand years of darkness.
    7. Re:Good time for raises, too! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      No idea, but wasn't Mr. Tibbitts the name of one of the Bond villains' cats?

      It reminded me of Tappy Tibbins from Requiem For A Dream.

      Can't you just see them running around the boardroom and yelling "Juice by Tappy! ooooOOOOH! Tappy's got juice!" Frankly, that would make a lot of their actions seem more reasonable.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  18. Ah, more spam! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just be prepared for future waves of SCO penny stock pump-n-dump spam mailings.

  19. I have just one thing to say. by lottameez · · Score: 1

    Buy low, sell high.

    Will I buy it? Absolutely.


    Not. (ok technically, that's about three things to say)

    --
    Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
    1. Re:I have just one thing to say. by uvajed_ekil · · Score: 1

      In the case of SCO, it is more like "buy low, get pissed-off and sell lower," or maybe "buy low, get pissed-off when the company moves from Chapter 11 to Chapter 7, liquidates all of its assets, and ceases all operations."

      --
      This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
  20. Soon SCOX.pk spam by www.sorehands.com · · Score: 1

    Soon, we will be getting spam pumping SCOX.pk.

    The question is, will the the SCO management be the ones sending out the spam?

    1. Re:Soon SCOX.pk spam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nah, they'll just hire a spam mail contractor to do it for them. (Anonymously, of course.)

    2. Re:Soon SCOX.pk spam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But will they sue the spammer because the spammer is using Linux?

    3. Re:Soon SCOX.pk spam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and having the spam mail contractor sending via MMDF (who else use MMDF as the MTA these days?)

  21. Snowed By SCO by truckaxle · · Score: 5, Informative

    From this article

    http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/19/software-linux-lawsuits-tech-oped-cx_dl_0919lyons.html

    Daniel Lyons has some choice quotes

    "I reported what they said. Turns out I was getting played. They never produced a smoking gun."

    and

    "It is simply this: I got it wrong. The nerds got it right."

    Not often you find a journalist reporting on their failure of foresight. Daniel gained a few points in my book.

    1. Re:Snowed By SCO by pilsner.urquell · · Score: 1
      Daniel Lyons also said

      SCO is road kill. Its lawsuit long ago ceased to represent any threat to Linux. That operating system has become far too successful to be dislodged. Someday soon the SCO lawsuits will go away, and I will never have to write another article about SCO ever again. I can't wait.

    2. Re:Snowed By SCO by complete+loony · · Score: 1
      It reads more like this to me:

      And I would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for you meddling kids.
      --
      09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
  22. It is to laugh by davmoo · · Score: 3, Informative

    From SCO's press release: a leading provider of UNIX(R) software technology and mobile services

    I have to laugh every time I see this line in their press releases. Even before their ill-advised journey in to the legal system, and back in their prime and heyday and earlier incarnations, SCO was never the leading provider of a damned thing.

    What would make this story complete would be if SCO's remaining share holders were to file suit against its officers and directors.

    Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to get ready to listen to the Fat Lady sing :-)

    --
    I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
  23. Common in Bankruptcy by raftpeople · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's common in bankruptcy to pay people extra to stay (those that will/could have a material impact on the finances of the company). The company I was at recently paid stay bonuses and a couple people saved the company far more money than they were paid to stay due to information they had on open issues.

  24. Do They Even Have Any Customers?????? by 1mck · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Do these Clowns even have anymore customers after what they've pulled? Who the hell would even stick with their products with all of this fiasco going on? If they do have any, then perhaps we of the Tech Field should point them to a much better solution for their needs, eh?

    1. Re:Do They Even Have Any Customers?????? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How far behind SCO do you think Microsoft is? I see a lot of writing on the wall.

    2. Re:Do They Even Have Any Customers?????? by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      Do these Clowns even have anymore customers after what they've pulled?

      Almost unbelievably, yes. It hasn't even been that long since MySQL AB partnered with them (Notice: any resemblance between the SCAMP logo and the OpenBSD pufferfish is coincidental) (SCAMP? Shoot that marketing director).

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  25. What about Micro$oft ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, isn't Micro$oft owning Novell, as of lately ? So, if Novell ends up with any exclusive Unix property, doesn't that mean that this can be used by Micro$oft to bully Linux competition ?

    1. Re:What about Micro$oft ? by Fujisawa+Sensei · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Hey, isn't Micro$oft owning Novell, as of lately ? So, if Novell ends up with any exclusive Unix property, doesn't that mean that this can be used by Micro$oft to bully Linux competition ?

      Like SCO tried bullying IBM?

      --
      If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
    2. Re:What about Micro$oft ? by DaveAtFraud · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The judge already found that Novell is the rightful owner of Unix so that concern is a little late. On the other hand, Novell also now owns SuSE Linux and continues to distribute it under the GPL. That means that any overlap, whether intentional or unintentional, no longer matters. There are no longer *ANY* grounds for someone to claim that Linux infringes Unix copyrights. Any such "infringement" just means that Novell as the Unix copyright owner released the code under the GPL. Funny how that works.

      I'd worry more about MicroSoft's new pattent FUD campaign. They're using the same strategy as SCO but claiming pattents instead of copyrights (claim there's infringement but not say where or even which patents). S-I-G-H. On the plus side, M$ keeps getting zinged by patent trolls so maybe they'll start working against software patents. Big, rich companies have a lot more to lose and very little to gain.

      Cheers,
      Dave

      BTW, IANAL so the above may be wrong but I don't think so.

      --
      They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
      Ben
    3. Re:What about Micro$oft ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. You're either seriously paranoid or just trying to stir up shit.

      In fact, it wouldn't matter if even if *Microsoft* OWNED the damned UNIX source code. SCO has been trying to find UNIX in Linux for what, 5 years? You don't think they would have found *something* if there was any, rather than resorting to outlandish theories about copyright? Theories that quite frankly are nothing but downright laughable, I might add.

      This is completely sidestepping a whole bunch of judicial terms, such as promissory estoppel, anti-trust, etc, etc, etc.

      To summarize; Be a good boy, take your pills and shut up.

    4. Re:What about Micro$oft ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In fact, it wouldn't matter if even if *Microsoft* OWNED the damned UNIX source code. SCO has been trying to find UNIX in Linux for what, 5 years? You don't think they would have found *something*

      Of course there is a lot of source in Linux from Unix. If you don't believe ask to The Yankee Monkey advisor DIdioT. She knows everything.

  26. The last person out the door at SCO... by Chris+Tucker · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...turn out the lights.

    Oh, and grab me one of them Aeron chairs while you're at it.

    Thanks!

    --
    Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
    1. Re:The last person out the door at SCO... by jk379 · · Score: 1

      Why turn out the lights? Nobody is paying the light bills. They have a court order preventing the power from being turned off. -Jason

  27. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 5, Funny
    So, leading providers often file Chapter 11?

    That's a typo. It's supposed to be "a leaving provider..."

  28. Wow it really IS everywhere! by n3tcat · · Score: 2, Funny

    8 is divisible by 2, and 6 is divisible by 3! 86 is related to 23! I should write a movie about it!

    1. Re:Wow it really IS everywhere! by Nazlfrag · · Score: 4, Funny

      8 divided by 2 is 4, 6 divided by 3 is 2 means 86 and 23 are related to 42! I've unlocked the secret to life, the universe and everything!

    2. Re:Wow it really IS everywhere! by darkrowan · · Score: 1

      If that is the case, both the question and answer have changed. I think the answer is now..... 37!

      --
      AccountKiller
  29. Slashdot kept us aware of SCO & Groklaw's anal by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The parent comment was moderated "Troll", and several people have made disparaging comments.

    However, this is how I figure it, and I'm serious, not joking: Slashdot kept the SCO issues and Groklaw's analysis of them in front of the eyes of a lot of Slashdot readers who were executives or knew executives, and in the normal course of discussing computer issues, created a culture of understanding SCO as not trustworthy.

    As poor as the editing of Slashdot is sometimes, I don't know any better way to get computer-related news. If you know of a better way, please mention it.

  30. Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by KWTm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not often you find a journalist reporting on their failure of foresight. Daniel gained a few points in my book.

    I'm not impressed. Anyone can say, "Oh. Er, oops." It's easy to couch it in terms that *sound* like you're really humble, like "I was really REALLY wrong." Big deal.

    He makes it sound like it just so happened that the geeks were right and he was wrong. "Turns out those amateur sleuths were right." He refers to arguably one of the largest communities of people who do this for a living plus interested and competent hobbyists as though he were saying, "Oh, look! Those little kids turned out to be right after all."

    He does not see *why* we saw that SCO had no leg to stand on. He does not realize how, next time, he can do better than the flip of a coin. He says, "... the pack of amateur sleuths who were following the case on a Web site called Groklaw and who claimed to know for sure that SCO was going to lose," and doesn't realize the painstaking review and due diligence that went on there that would put wikipedia to shame.

    He says:

    SCO is road kill. Its lawsuit long ago ceased to represent any threat to Linux. That operating system has become far too successful to be dislodged.

    Er, so SCO failed because Linux was too successful?

    No, Mr. Lyons. SCO failed because SCO was wrong , and if they had won, they still would have been wrong except there would have been a miscarriage of justice. It's not because someone threw the dice wrong or that the "pack" known as Slashdot or Groklaw happened to have a good day. It's not because you've been getting too much email pointing out that you were misinformed, Mr. Lyons, or ignorant.

    You don't fool me. Your basic thinking shows through in your words, even though those words sound nice on the surface. Kinda like the press releases of this other company I know that turned out to be wrong.

    -----
    (By the way, I expect Laura Didio and Enderle to write something like, "Well, darnit, looks like Novell owns the rights to Unix, not SCO. So we'll just wait for Novell to sue Linux for blatant copying of Unix source into Linux.")
    --
    404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
    [GPG key in journal]
    1. Re:Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by khallow · · Score: 1

      I'm not impressed. Anyone can say, "Oh. Er, oops." It's easy to couch it in terms that *sound* like you're really humble, like "I was really REALLY wrong." Big deal.

      Compare this to the usual approach, which is to pretend the errors never occured or even to never know that they were wrong. You decide whether or not you want to reward behavior that's much better than average for journalism, but IMHO an extensive apology, even an error-ridden apology as this one was, still merits some approval on our part.
    2. Re:Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by lendude · · Score: 3, Informative
      Excellent post. Lyons needs to be sent a laminated copy of this to hang on his toilet wall as a reminder of his shoddy work.

      I've had a couple of short email conversations with Dan (not of any consequence, just something along the lines of resisting the urge to be a mouthpiece for SCO) and in his one reply he exhibited the same hubris as he does in this excuse for an apology.

      See, it wasn't really him: SCO snowed him, he gave them the benefit of the doubt, and after all what's a journalist who follows a case for 4 years meant to do except take them at their word - continually. God forbid that he should pay any attention to a bunch of 'nerds' who happened to luck out - who woulda thunk it?.

      And see, he is only publishing his 'mea culpa' out of his own supreme sense of integrity - "Online publications don't typically ask for follow-throughs. But I need to write one." - wow, what a guy! And don't forget, "Over time my SCO articles began to carry headlines like, "Dumb and Dumber," "Bumbling Bully" and "SCO gets TKO'd.". See, I really was doing my due diligence and actively seeking fact, wading through SCO's bullshit! He wasn't falling for SCO's brand of the truth!

      And anyway, those nasty nerdy types in "that highly partisan crowd have suggested that I wanted SCO to win, and even that I was paid off by SCO or Microsoft. Of course that's not true. I've told these folks it's not true. Hasn't stopped them". Poor Dan is non-plussed by such callousness! How can we not but believe all Dan tells us?

      Sorry Dan, that is the piss-poorest excuse for a mea culpa in recorded history - more about denying culpability, and attempting to shore up a position which was pretty much a dogshit-coated candy from day one. Grow some fucking balls and just give us the plain fact: you were wrong because you didn't do your job to any standard worthy of someone who proclaims themselves a 'journalist'.

      --
      "Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
    3. Re:Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by Aladrin · · Score: 1

      "Er, so SCO failed because Linux was too successful?"

      How did you get that from what he said? He claimed that Linux was no longer threatened by SCO, not that Linux was ever doing the threatening.

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    4. Re:Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by KWTm · · Score: 1

      He claimed that Linux was no longer threatened by SCO, not that Linux was ever doing the threatening...
      "Er, so SCO failed because Linux was too successful?"
      How did you get that from what he said?
      How did I get that from what he said? Because that's exactly what he said: "That operating system has become far too successful to be dislodged."

      Let me make sure you are not misinterpreting what I mean by "failed". I mean that he said SCO failed [to be successful in its lawsuit] because Linux was too big to be sued; I agree that he never said that SCO "failed" [financially as a company and ended up being bankrupt] because Linux took the initiative to bring SCO down.

      If SCO had instead sued some wimpy Free Software project people had never heard of, such as ReactOS (aiming to be a Free equivalent of WinNT/Win2k) which does not have any big companies or money behind it, then ReactOS would probably have caved from legal pressure, even though SCO would still be wrong. And in his column Lyons would have mentioned about some evil riffraff hackers advancing the ridiculous suggestion that they were capable of creating an operating system by themselves, while in reality pirating source code from an honest, hardworking company like SCO.
      --
      404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
      [GPG key in journal]
    5. Re:Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by Aladrin · · Score: 1

      Yeah, that was the difference. I thought you meant failed as a business. (Though, at this point, failure the lawsuit and failing the business are the same thing.)

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    6. Re:Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by lawpoop · · Score: 1

      Where did you find his email address? I'd like to email him. I am yet unable to find it on the Forbes website.

      --
      Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
      -- Pablo Picasso
    7. Re:Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by IGnatius+T+Foobar · · Score: 1

      (By the way, I expect Laura Didio and Enderle to write something like, "Well, darnit, looks like Novell owns the rights to Unix, not SCO. So we'll just wait for Novell to sue Linux for blatant copying of Unix source into Linux.")
      Don't laugh. Now that Novell is essentially controlled by Microsoft, that could definitely happen. The big lawsuit for 2008 could be designed specifically to make sure that the only legal Linux users are SuSE users. Game over.
      --
      Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
    8. Re:Unimpressed by his apology; he doesn't get it by lendude · · Score: 1

      I got it off one of his articles a couple of years ago - I haven't checked in a long time if it's available anywhere currently. Sorry.

      --
      "Get off the cross - we need the wood" - Tori Amos
  31. Filing dept. by rinkjustice · · Score: 1

    sampsenpuz said this story was from the please-let-this-be-the-end dept, but it should more aptly be filed under shutup-sco-and-die-already dept.

    But that's just my particular filing method.

  32. Company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Company:

    "Not to mention the Golden Handcuffs. You know about Golden Handcuffs?"

    Jones nods. "Sure, the bonus an executive gets when he leaves the company."

    "No, no, that's a Golden Parachute."

    "Oh--right. The signing bonus, then."

    "That's the Golden Handshake. Golden Handcuffs are what they get for working in a company with low morale. First they screw up the company, then because it's hard to attract good staff, they pay themselves more."

    "But that's wrong!" Jones says, shocked. "Did somebody take this up with Daniel Klausman?" Freddy cracks up again. Even Holly smiles. "Remember when you first started here, Freddy, and you thought everyone was clever and helpful and only wanted to do what's best for the company?"

    "Yeah. I used to shine my shoes."

  33. Yeah, but did he learn anything? by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The problem was less that he was wrong, and more that he just reported what SCO said without being skeptical or attempting to suss out how full of shit they were. And from day one, there were plenty of indications that SCO had nothing.

    A reporter's job isn't to be a stenographer for whatever anyone wants to say. We have press releases for that.
    Reporters are supposed to get stories, sort out the various facts, and if someone's feeding them bullshit, point that out. The tendency for reporters today to be "balanced" in reporting on an issue really just means that people with nothing to back up what they say are put on even footing with people who have facts to back up their claims.

    Let's hope Lyons learned that he actually has to do some, you know, reporting, as part of his job.

    1. Re:Yeah, but did he learn anything? by joebagodonuts · · Score: 1

      "Reporters are supposed to get stories, sort out the various facts, and if someone's feeding them bullshit, point that out. "

      Why do any of us believe that? That is an expression of the ideal of "journalism", mostly held by people who aren't journalists. Forbes will report news in a certain way. A way that guarantees they continue to get paid a lot of money from advertisers. A reporter's job is to do what his editor tells him to do. Dan does that job very well. If you expect any large media outlet to expose the "truth", you will be disappointed. Exposing truth is risky, doesn't pay well - advertisers with lots of cash (big business) don't support news outlets that might expose a business in a poor light. It's not the goal of Forbes to expose the "truth", they are concerned with making sure they can operate in such a way that the money continues to flow. Business, not journalism.

      In the case of SCO - sites like /. & Groklaw could do what Forbes couldn't - Be openly critical of SCO and the make believe case they brought.

      As far as the acticle, it's actually pretty good. At least he took the time to write it. Of course, Forbes wouldn't let it be posted until now... but that's on Forbes, not necessarily Dan.

      FWIW, this is a much better sample of his work: http://fakesteve.blogspot.com/

      --
      "Give a woman two glasses of wine and some pad thai, and they'll agree to just about anything." the Sports Guy
  34. 2 bits for SCO! by capnkr · · Score: 0

    2 bits of advice, that is:

    1) Place foot in mouth.

    2) Shoot self in foot.

    ---------------------

    Come to think of it, if they'd have had Darl do that, they might still be a "going concern".

    ---------------------

    Good Riddance, to ya' and yer scurvy pox of a lawsuit!

    --
    "...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
  35. Check this email! by RWarrior(fobw) · · Score: 5, Funny

    Big news expected.*This stock will implode!*
    Do not wait until it is too late!!!
    LOOK AND WATCH SCOX THIS MONDAY

    New news expected next week.
    Expected 7 day price -$1.10
    Last time they put out major news the stock ran like shit down a toddler's leg!

    (SYMBOL: SCOX)
    Price: $ .20
    Short Term Target: 300-500% Loss

    *******PRESS RELEASE******
    **SCOX****SCOX****SCOX**** =
    A $1,000 dollar investment could yield a $5,000 dollar trip around the toilet bowl in just one trade if you trade out before you hit the water trap. SCOX should be one of the most exciting stocks to trade for Sept, if you like roller coasters that only go down! In this range the stock has potential to move in the nether direction in big concrete shoes!!!! This means you should be able to buy at the lows and sell even lower, if you can get the fuck out of the way of this oncoming train fast enough! Did we tell you you've been tied to the track!!!!!!!!!!

    If the company is able to effectuate it's business model, WATCH OUT!!! We could see a GREAT STORY IN THE MAKING. Uproariously funny and documented all over the web for everyone to see!!!!

    GOOD LUCK AND TRADE OUT BEFORE YOU HIT THE WASTE TREATMENT FACILITY!

    --
    Remove the caps and hold to a mirror.
  36. Peace at last. by courcoul · · Score: 1

    Good riddance.

    I'll roast marshmallows over a fire made with my SCO Linux install CD's...

  37. That is so going to backfire by Animats · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Last minute payments to an insider just before filing bankruptcy? That's disastrous for SCO. This is waving a red flag in front of the bankruptcy judge. This screams "attempted asset stripping".

    It won't work, either. The bankruptcy trustee can retroactively undo that payment. The trustee can go back into the past 90 days for any transaction and undo it, or back a full year for anything involving an insider. Special payments to insiders during a bankruptcy need explicit permission from the bankruptcy court. And saying "we did it before the bankruptcy" won't help. The law (11 U.S.C. 547) is that "the debtor is presumed to have been insolvent on and during the 90 days immediately preceding the date of the filing of the petition."

    The side effects of this will be severe. Remember, SCO management is currently only a "debtor in possession", and can do only whatever the bankruptcy trustee and the court specifically let them do. As soon as the judge gets word of this, SCO's management will have their chain yanked. SCO management will be much more closely supervised and have much less discretionary authority than they expected.

    SCO management was apparently thinking they could go into chapter 11 quietly and cut Novell out of the loop. They didn't even list Novell as a creditor in their initial filing. That plan stopped flying when Novell sent five bankruptcy attorneys from Morrison and Foerster to Delaware for the first-day bankruptcy hearing.

    Novell's request for a "constructive trust" for the unpaid royalty payments just got a huge boost. Now they'll probably get it. Which drains out most of SCO's cash.

    1. Re:That is so going to backfire by CowboyCapo · · Score: 1

      STOP! Rewind that clock, boys and girls. Just a question for all of you, please humour me for a moment: If every deal over the past 90 days can be considered rewound, if you will, what does that make of SCOG's response in court that they were solvent? I believe that was less than 90 days ago, so does that mean some additional blazing red hot coals will be heaped upon poor Darl's head?

  38. darl must be listless by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    list
    n.
    1. A narrow strip, especially of wood.
    2. Architecture See listel.
    3. A border or selvage of cloth.
    4. An arena for jousting tournaments or other contests. Often used in the plural.
    5. A place of combat.
    6. An area of controversy.

  39. Poll Idea: by Kaenneth · · Score: 2, Funny

    You are given the honor of choosing one of these 3 OS's to be deployed at your company:

    1) SCO Unix
    2) Windows Vista
    3) CP/M

    1. Re:Poll Idea: by gbobeck · · Score: 1
      I can only imaging how that would end up... You know someone is going to post

      You forgot an option... (4) CowboyNeal OS
      --
      Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
    2. Re:Poll Idea: by Perseid · · Score: 1

      I'll go with CP/M. I'll be the only person at work who can use the computers...

    3. Re:Poll Idea: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Which SCO Unix? UnixWare? OpenServer? Something older?

      Anyway that would probably be my choice, regardless of the actions of the current company calling itself SCO. It's not as if Darl wrote it.

      Getting future support might be a PITA, but no less so than for CP/M...and I'd try to get a support contract that gives me access to the source code if support is no longer available.

    4. Re:Poll Idea: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've never seen/heard-of/used CP/M... Assuming it's a real OS installing it would be a horrible experience of trying to rework all of our business workflows to fit a system that none of us understand... but on the other hand, I think it'd still be my choice of the three... and I'm a .NET coder.

    5. Re:Poll Idea: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No if I can get on there - I know pip!

    6. Re:Poll Idea: by ciaran.mchale · · Score: 1

      You are given the honor of choosing one of these 3 OS's to be deployed at your company:
      1) SCO Unix
      2) Windows Vista
      3) CP/M
      Hmmm... I'll go to the Beowulf cluster of CP/M.
    7. Re:Poll Idea: by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      Ah, CP/M. The reason why, to this day, I keep typing cat instead of ls and wonder why I'm not getting a directory listing...

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    8. Re:Poll Idea: by Archiviste · · Score: 1

      You are given the honor of choosing one of these 3 OS's to be deployed at your company:

      1) SCO Unix
      2) Windows Vista
      3) CP/M

      Missing option:

      4) I'd rather commit seppuku

    9. Re:Poll Idea: by bhtooefr · · Score: 1

      Let me just put it this way: It's what MS-DOS began as a clone of.

  40. i know it's bad by voidy · · Score: 2

    I know it's shameful, but i am gloating so much right now. Having followed this story for years, I am finally hearing the news that everyone has waited for. People might be playing this down, but this really is the end for SCO. I still want to seem them dragged through streets of jeering, vegetable throwing hordes, and any other humiliation that can be mustered, but the final nails in their coffin have finally been hammerred in. Darl reminds me of that Iraqi secretary of state guy (saddams buddy), still telling everyone that there are no problems, and the stockholders have no need to worry haha. i would love to see darls head on a spike the most hehe Anyone who isn't pleased at the outcome after the shameful mockery that SCO have been playing through, should be ashamed of themselves.

    If i could be bothered to link to a sample of nelson in in the simpsons i would do so right here

    you;ll have to excuse my incoherence. I've been up all night after a night shift, and it's 8am now. my words don't really do justice to the gloat and self righteousness i feel right now haha. Everyone knows the SCO group are a parasitical organisation, existing by leeching everything they can get away with. What good have SCO done the citizens of the world? None, they are a blight on this world, and the sooner they're wiped off the face of the planet the better. We all know that the world could be a better place with true collaboration such as that displayed by the open source community in all its divisions, Even big corporate entities with proprietary products provide something which people are willing to pay for, but SCO, they do nothing apart from make their wallets fatter at others expense.

    May you rust in pieces hahahaha

    --
    I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. Isaac Asimov
  41. New logo for SCO will be $0 by shanen · · Score: 1

    Not original with, but worth repeating and I'm sorry I can't give proper credit to the wit who came up with it. All I can say is I saw it somewhere on the Web recently, and it stuck with me for the obvious reasons.

    My own idea for a new logo would have been something boring, like the toilet bowl, but that suggestion was claimed long ago--and repeatedly.

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  42. Re:New logo for SCO will be $<0 by shanen · · Score: 2, Funny

    Whoops. Preview my post? Where do you think this is, /.?

    The suggested new SCO logo is $<0, not HTML with a 0 tag.

    --
    Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
  43. Even more bizarre claim by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IANAL, but I thought the court said Novell owns UNIX, so what's this quote doing in the linked article:

    SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to UNIX-based system software providers.

    WTF ???

  44. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by laejoh · · Score: 0

    It's unix, so everything is a file, even Chapter 11

  45. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by Vlad_the_Inhaler · · Score: 1

    You missed the next bit: SCO owns the core UNIX operating system, originally developed by AT&T/Bell Labs and is the exclusive licensor to UNIX-based system software providers.
    This goes beyond marketing-speak lying, I don't know about the US but in Germany, telling big whoppers like that in order to manipulate share prices can land you with a large fine or even jail time. I wonder what the post-Enron legislation is going to mean in this case.

    --
    Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
  46. SCO Deleted by Stochastism · · Score: 1

    rm -fr /mnt/sco
    umount /dev/sco
    mkfs.ext3 /dev/sco
    mount /dev/sco /mnt/linux
    echo "SCO is dead. Long live UNIX." > /mnt/linux/LongLiveUnix

    1. Re:SCO Deleted by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      mke2fs -j -c -c /dev/sco

      Takes a while, but cleans out all the dreck!

  47. How long would you say 'til "pump'n'dump"? by Opportunist · · Score: 1

    When can we expect the first pump'n'dump spam for SCO? "Buy SCO for 1 cents today..."

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    1. Re:How long would you say 'til "pump'n'dump"? by BigBadBus · · Score: 1

      I saw one weeks ago! I submitted the story to Slashdot, but it got rejected :(

  48. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by Barny · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Thats because SGI still have products worth buying ;)

    --
    ...
    /me sighs
  49. Scox's price is not low by walterbyrd · · Score: 1

    To determine if a stock's stock's price is low, you have to compare the share price to the company's future earnings prospects. A few year's back, the price of AAPL was low.

    Scox has never earned anything, and is never likely to earn anything. That means that scox is overvalued at any price.

    Day traders, and the funds, may send scox's share price up temporarily, if you want to gamble. But, even if you do want to gamble, there are probably better risks.

    JMHO.

  50. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by tgd · · Score: 1

    I think you may have a Y2K bug there... its actually 2007. ;)

  51. reduce reuse recycle by cryptozoologist · · Score: 1

    i am redoing my bathroom and i thought it would be great to paper the walls (and if i have any leftover, my arse) with sco stock certificates. do they even really exist or is it all done electronically?

  52. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by Barny · · Score: 1

    I was referring to the cases, I swear, those O2 toasters are the greatest ^_^

    And lets face it, a plastic faeces producing factory would make a more interesting product than SCO could.

    --
    ...
    /me sighs
  53. Re:Slashdot kept us aware of SCO & Groklaw's a by Rui+Lopes · · Score: 1

    As poor as the editing of Slashdot is sometimes, I don't know any better way to get computer-related news. If you know of a better way, please mention it. hummmmm... digg?

    /me ducks!
    --
    var sig = function() { sig(); }
  54. Re:"a leading provider of UNIX(R)software technolo by jonnykelly · · Score: 1

    But SGI stopped selling it's UNIX(R) software & technology earlier this year. IRIX(R) is no longer available thru SGI's normal channels, and support ends in 2013 ("no sooner than 12/2013" is the quote). And all their current hardware runs SUSE or RedHat Linux or even Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003 software now.
    My pair of Indy's weep blue tears...

  55. Re:Good bye and... Well, that's ONE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...almost. It's still too early for McCoy to repeat his trademarked phrase, Jim, since the patient is still on life support (although it's apparently been brain dead for years).

    I'll cheer more when Sony dies. All SCO did was to rattle sabers at the Linux community, not unlike when Nikita Khrushchev banged his shoe on the table at the UN yelling "we will bury you!" Even though I'm a Linux user and booster, there was no way SCO was going to bury Linux; SCO was little more than an annoying joke.

    So I'm kind of sad, I like jokes. Even bad jokes like SCO. Here's hoping McBride's new job will be CEO of Sony. Then when he he kills that damned demon, maybe he can get a job with Microsoft?

    -mcgrew

  56. Shorting Stocks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    One thing to add... When you buy a stock "long", the most you can lose is your investment. When you sell short, your risk is unbounded.

    Say you short 100 shares of SCOX at $0.50. (This is actually probably not allowed under the rules but anyway... There are specific rules about what stock you can and can't short, and when you can and when you can't short.) Then SCOX stages a miracle recovery and goes to $5. You are out $500 (-$50). The heavens open up and SCOX goes to $50. You are now out $5000! This against the fact that the most you could gain by your short was $50.

    I shorted a stock called DNA many years ago. I had a stop-limit in place to limit my lose. I was lucky. DNA double from where I shorted it. Once it doubled, though, it proceeded to 0!

  57. THIS IS NOT VICTORY, MORONS!!!! by RecycledElectrons · · Score: 0

    This is not victory for those of us who operate in the Free World!

    SCO was only a pawn of the BSA, Microsoft, & Steve Balmer. Microsoft illegally pumped millions into SCO to create FUD about Linux. The slander that SCO engaged in on the orders of Microsoft has done trillions of dollars in damage to everyone in the free world.

    With SCO's delisting, we can say that after losing many key pieces, we are in a good position to maybe take one of Microsoft's pawns.

    This is not a victory!

    A victory would be Microsoft delisted, Microsoft's assets seized, and Steve Balmer in prison for life without parole for racketeering.

    Until the BSA member companies are all gone, along with everyone else who has ever attacked FOSS software as illegal, we are at war. This is a war of extermination. The BSA, together with its' member companies, and all their employees and stock holders and investors continue to claim that FOSS software is illegal. The only way we, in the Free World, can exist is to exterminate the BSA together with its' member companies, and all their employees and stock holders and investors.

    Here are some hints on how to proceed:

    1. Almost all EULAs are illegal since, when read, they are clearly "unconscionable contracts."

    2. Anyone who says anything negative and blatantly false about FOSS (e.g., that the GPL is unenforceable) has slandered everyone in the Free World. Use small claims court to go after them, and have 5 friends do the same.

    3. Hit their stock holders & employees.

    4. Question the continued employment of anyone who agrees to a license agreement that say Microsoft can view, edit, or delete anything they want to on your employer's computer.

    Andy Out!

  58. What a pleasant birthday present by Epi-man · · Score: 1

    I have been following this story from the beginning, how nice that they will get axed from the NASDAQ on my birthday.

  59. Source material for the next scam by ciaran.mchale · · Score: 1

    Dear friend, I am the wife of Mr. Tibbitts. As SCO was being viciously sued into non-existence due to false accusations made against SCO, my husband liberated money from the sco bank account and transferred it to a Nigerian bank account (last digits 419). I seek your help to repatriate these funds of $50,000,000 (fifty million dollars) and will give you 30% as a thank you....

  60. They need to lift the stay first. by Jaywalk · · Score: 1

    Someone, maybe Novell, needs to ask the Bankruptcy Court to deny SCO's filing for Chapter 11 on the grounds that there's no way they can re-organize into a viable operation, and therefore they need to be liquidated. Then the creditors can auction off the honor of kicking Darl out on his ass.
    They need to lift the stay on the trial first. As matters stand, Kimball has said that SCO owes Novell money, but has not set an amount. SCO's declaration of bankruptcy stayed that trial -- which was scheduled to start Monday -- so, theoretically, the amount SCO owed Novell could be trivial. Novell needs to get the stay lifted so that Kimball can declare how much money SCO owes Novell. Then Novell could return to the bankruptcy court and request that the filing be changed to a chapter 11 since there is no way for SCO to make good on their debts.

    Keep in mind that Novell isn't in exactly the same boat as the other SCO creditors. Novell is claiming that SCO breached it's fiduciary duty and converted (i.e., stole) money that belonged to Novell. As a result, any money SCO has isn't SCO's money at all, but stolen goods. Expect Novell to argue that it would be inappropriate for SCO to be allowed to use Novell's money to finance SCO's reorganization.

    --
    ===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
  61. Wall Street's Top Ten Idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here are the top owners of SCOX stock as of last June 30. Idiots!

    http://finance.yahoo.com/q/mh?s=SCOX

    I guess there must be some openings for Portfolio Managers in those firms...

    1. Re:Wall Street's Top Ten Idiots by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wouldn't surprise me if most of those die hards were MS puppets. In other words, it may really be Microsoft's money that was sunk into SCOX stock. Even if MS loses it all (probably on the order of $50 million), it doesn't matter. $50 million is chump change to them. Isn't it wonderful that corruption is so cheap?

  62. 1985 by C0vardeAn0nim0 · · Score: 1


    Domain Name: PURDUE.EDU

    Registrant:
          Purdue University
          501 Harrison Street
          SCCA Room 36
          West Lafayette, IN 47907
          UNITED STATES

    Administrative Contact:
          Scott M. Ballew
          Sr. Network Architect
          Purdue University
          501 Harrison Street
          SCCA Room 36
          West Lafayette, IN 47907
          UNITED STATES
          (765) 496-8232
          smb@purdue.edu

    Technical Contact:
          Kenneth F. Rice
          Purdue University
          501 Harrison Street
          SCCA
          West Lafayette, IN 47907
          UNITED STATES
          (765) 496-8320
          rice@purdue.edu

    Name Servers:
          NS.PURDUE.EDU 128.210.11.5
          NS1.RICE.EDU
          PENDRAGON.CS.PURDUE.EDU 128.10.2.5
          HARBOR.ECN.PURDUE.EDU 128.46.154.76

    Domain record activated: 24-Apr-1985
    Domain record last updated: 11-Dec-2006
    Domain expires: 31-Jul-2008

    --
    What ? Me, worry ?
    1. Re:1985 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Carnegie Mellon seemed to have gotten their domain name the same day (24 Apr 1985). Was that the activation date of .edu or something?

            Domain Name: CMU.EDU
            Whois Server: whois.educause.net
            Referral URL: http://www.educause.edu/edudomain
            Name Server: T-NS1.NET.CMU.EDU
            Name Server: AC-TNS-1.NET.CMU.EDU
            Name Server: AC-TNS-2.NET.CMU.EDU
            Name Server: NY-SERVER-1.NET.CMU.EDU
            Status: ok
            Updated Date: 12-sep-2007
            Creation Date: 24-apr-1985
            Expiration Date: 24-apr-2008

  63. odds by gosand · · Score: 1
    SGI did, but they also pulled out of bankruptcy.


    I'll give you 1000 to 1 that SCO doesn't.

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

  64. Don't forget Agent 86 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maxwell Smart.

  65. We should take an idea from B5 by Bob+of+Dole · · Score: 1

    Let's put a picture on SCO.com of Darl's head on a spike, as a reminder to the next ten generations that some favors come at too high a price.
    Then we can walk by and wave like this! *wiggles fingers*

    If we're low on cash we can just photoshop his head onto the spike.

  66. If Novell should sue Linux ... by KWTm · · Score: 1

    ... we'll just wait for Novell to sue Linux for blatant copying of Unix source into Linux."
    Don't laugh. Now that Novell is essentially controlled by Microsoft, that could definitely happen.

    Yeah. It sounds ridiculous to even entertain the thought that this might happen; but then the SCO lawsuit itself was pretty ridiculous, too, and that didn't seem to deter SCO.

    How much do you want to be that, when the time comes, Daniel Lyons will write, "Aha! *This* time I'm positive that Linux stole Unix code!"
    --
    404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
    [GPG key in journal]
  67. like "leading brand" detergent by David+Gould · · Score: 1

    Maybe it's like all those commercials for laundry/dish-washing detergent, where the advertised product is favorably compared to "The Leading Brand" (TM), never mind that the products in those commercials are themselves generally the best-known brands in their category (or at least, in the top two or three).

    As in soap, so in unix: perhaps there needs to be a "Leading Brand" for all the others to be better than.

    --
    David Gould
    main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
  68. Um, that may be illegal. by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 1

    You didn't only lose that money. You also violated the terms of your loan, that require you to use the money only for educational expenses.

  69. After this, toss that casket into a DEEP hole by Moe1975 · · Score: 1

    (Laughing Maniacally)

    and top it with cement

    --
    SARAVA!